


Winter

by spinner33



Series: CM - Close to Canon [32]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: F/M, Implied Child Abuse, M/M, Murder Most Foul, discussion of mature topics, domestic abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-29
Updated: 2015-11-29
Packaged: 2018-05-03 23:42:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 13,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5311559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spinner33/pseuds/spinner33
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mouse visits Reid over Spring Break, and she learns more about her father.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Comments will be monitored from here on out. Sorry for the inconvenience.

_“Get a little warm in my heart when I think of winter. Put my hand in my father's glove.” — Tori Amos_

“This is Dr. Reid. May I help you?”

Reid clicked the speaker button to answer his phone, and he took a drink of coffee. He nearly spit it out when he heard the terse voice on the other end of the line.

“Dobray ootra. (good day) Your daughter will be in Washington at 7 p.m.. Would you be able to pick her up?” 

“I….Hi,” Reid gulped. “Yes?”

Yulia Korsakova sounded furious, to be frank, and although Spencer didn’t have the first idea why, he knew he didn’t want to antagonize her in the slightest.

“Good. Specibo. May I email you the details?” “I don’t have….”

“Yes, you do. Katherine will explain. I must go now. Svedanya, my dear.”

Morgan and Prentiss had eyes all over Reid. They both looked away when he took a deep breath and murmured, “Svedanya.”

By the way Korsakova had said the name Katherine, Reid knew it must be another mother-daughter argument. There had been many such arguments in the weeks since the Korsakovi had moved from Washington to Seattle. The move had been abrupt, and neither of them was happy, but it was one of those things that must be endured. A new voice came onto the line.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

“I made you a Gmail account. Do you have a pen?”

Reid fumbled, putting down the coffee mug and picking up a pen. His fingers fluttered over the nearest pieces of paper in reach—all of them had notes scribbled and scrawled in every available space. Reid sighed and flattened his left hand, popping the cap off the pen with a flick of his thumb.

“Go ahead,” he growled, testing the pen and watching blue ink appear on his sweaty palm.

“D-R-G-O-O-D-F-O-O-T-3-9,” Mouse spelled slowly. 

“I don’t like email,” Reid protested.

“Papa, you can’t continue to live in the Dark Ages. You need a personal email,” Mouse replied. “You use email at work. Why is this any different? Besides. It’s not your email. It’s Goody’s email. But you have to check it for him because he doesn’t have opposable thumbs.”

“What’s the rest?” Reid sighed. His daughter sounded just as angry as her mother had. It must have been a very bad fight.

“It’s Gmail.”

“Which means what?” 

“At G-M-A-I-L dot com.” 

“Will I need a password?”

Prentiss giggled, and Reid lobbed a glare-grenade at her. Emily deflected the look by ducking behind a folder.

“Here kitty 99,” Mouse replied.

“What? Like, all together? One word? Three words? Any spaces? I hate email, Mouse,” Reid panicked. “It’s inhuman. You lose all of the important physical and emotional clues of human communication with the electronic word. I struggle with communication as it is, let alone with pixels and dots and…..”

“All together. One word. No spaces. All lowercase.” 

“Is it case sensitive?”

“Yes. It’s case sensitive. Please stop being helpless. This is simple technology. It won’t bite. Honestly. You can fieldstrip a Sikorsky but you can’t use email? I have to go. I’m going to be late. Max is waiting. See you tonight.”

“I don’t have to talk to the helicopter. I don’t have to judge the emotional state of the helicopter. It’s nuts and bolts and metal and machine.”

“So is a computer. Don’t be such a baby.”

“Mouse, stop being bossy,” Reid frowned. “Tell me what happened with you and your mother?”

“I don’t want to talk now,” the young girl replied. There was more than a trace of snivel to her voice. “Bye. Love you. Bye.”

“I hate email,” Reid repeated again. “But I love you.” 

“I love you too. Bye.”

“Bye,” he answered. He blew on his hand to dry the ink, and clicked two more buttons on the phone. “Garcia? Hi. Are you busy?” 

“Yes. What?”

“Have I mentioned lately that you are my favorite computer techie person?”

“Oh God. What do you need, Boy Wonder?” Penelope sighed.

“Help,” he squeaked.

“Reid, if you opened another plea for money from the Bank of London branch manager in Zimbabwe, I’m going to spank you.”

“Once! I did that once,” Reid growled. Morgan was laughing this time.

“I’ll be there in five,” Garcia said before hanging up the phone.

“Not one word,” Reid threatened Morgan and Prentiss. Derek made a funny face at him, and Emily shook her head.

“Dobray ootra, Doctor Reid,” Prentiss purred with a thick Russian accent. “Linguist, my butt.”

“She is a linguist. Espionage is really only a hobby,” Reid whispered before he hurried towards Hotch’s office.


	2. Chapter 2

“It’s been a quiet week. This shouldn’t be a problem,” Hotch said, busy with the reports on his desk. “Do you want to take a couple days? Work from home? You can write reports and such from there as well as here.”

“What if a case comes up?” 

“We’ll call you,” Hotch promised.

“What do I do with Mouse if a case comes up?”

“Bring her along, I suppose. Think of it as one of those ‘take your daughter to work’ days or something,” Hotch smiled.

“You want me to let a ten-year-old in the interrogation room with cannibal serial killers and sexual sadists? You want me to wrap her in Kevlar and let her come on police raids with us?” Reid gasped. “Are you crazy?!”

“Her mother is a spy wrangler and a weapons expert. Her bodyguard is a member of a secret Russian military hit squad. She spends an hour every day at the gun range. She’s probably better prepared for police raids than you are,” Aaron grinned.

“Cheap shot,” Spencer frowned, closing Hotch’s door again.

Garcia whistled at Reid, motioning for him to return to his desk.

“All right, Reid. You’re in. I’ve set it up on your desk computer, your phone, and your laptop. I even wrote you some directions in case you somehow manage to screw it up and log yourself out of the program. Look, you’ve already got ten emails. Someone wants to talk to you in cat-speak. They’re sending you pictures of cat toys and fish.”

“Thank you, really, thank you. I’ll bring you bon bons,” Reid promised.

“No, you won’t,” Garcia frowned.

“Yes, I will. I will take my butt to the nearest Godiva store right this second and bring you anything you want.”

“Home-cooked soup.”

“Oh. I see someone’s been blabbing,” Reid frowned. Morgan ducked his head. Prentiss ducked and scooted closer to her computer monitor.

“Morgan got beef and barley soup on Monday. Prentiss got spicy red Dal soup on Tuesday. JJ got chicken and noodles. Rossi got minestrone yesterday. Hotch was warming up chili yesterday. Me. It’s my turn. I want home-cooked soup too!”

“It’s the vegetarian thing. But I think I found one for you. It’s in the fridge.”

“What did you make?”

“Hot and sour soup with shitake mushrooms and tofu, and veggie dumplings.”

Garcia grabbed Reid’s hand and pulled him towards the kitchen area.

“You want lunch already? It’s ten a.m.,” he laughed. Garcia crossed her arms, tapped one foot, and waited impatiently. Reid opened the fridge door and dug around. “This is….you know…an experiment. Not sure about the recipe yet. I’m only beginning to learn how to really cook as a serious pursuit. Working my way through the book. Starting in soups. Will eventually reach desserts. Oh. Here we go.”

Reid stood up, showing Penelope a bright blue plastic container. She jumped up and down for a second before snatching it from him and sticking it in the microwave.

“I wouldn’t say no to Godiva too,” she said, waiting for the beep.


	3. Chapter 3

“Step back, sir.”

“This is quite unnecessary.”

“Step back through the device, sir.”

“I told you, I would welcome a pat-down. I cannot step through without setting off your alarms. I told you. Why you no listen?”

“Mr. Volchenkov. Please step back through the machine.”

“Read the papers,” Max motioned, giving Mouse her jacket which he had been holding.

“It’s in Russian.”

“Of course it is in Russian,” Volchenkov mused. “You were expecting Swahili?”

“Please step back through the device, sir.”

“Bojzha moi,” Max rolled his eyes and walked through the scanners again. The alarms and red lights were blaring again. Guards from other divisions were scrambling in their direction. Mouse stood to one side, turning pink with amusement, covering her mouth with one hand, clutching her carry-on and swinging it gently back and forth.

“Please remove all metal objects from your pockets and your person. Cell phones. Watches. Coins. Keys.”

“I cannot remove all metal objects, not unless you want my thigh bone and half my pelvis on your conveyor belt. It’s in the papers. Read the papers.”

“Sir, you will comply or you will not come through.”

Max leaned down to the table and whispered something to the guard. The young man’s eyes went wide and he made a sour face. He folded up the papers and handed them back to Max.

“Look, if it’s a piercing, we get piercings all the time. It’s nothing unusual. We’re going to have to see though.”

“It is not a piercing. But you may see it, if you must.”

“Private room. Pat down. Cavity search,” the guard called out.

Max was escorted from the line to the side. He was led to a nearby office that was all windows. All the shades were pulled down. Max winked at Mouse before the door was closed. The guard took one look at the young girl and waved her through. Mouse tossed her bag and hockey stick up on the belt, took off her boots, took off her purse, and skipped through the device holding her jacket.

Alarms and red lights went off again. The guard scowled at her.

“Step back through, miss.”

“Oh. It must be wrong. You sure it’s not reading Max still?” she said. She dropped her jacket down on the floor. The many zippers and snaps on the jacket rattled noisily. Mouse thought she had heard a metallic thump, but the guard didn't react, so she didn't either. She stepped through and back again quickly. The alarms did not sound. The guard was pushing buttons, watching the screens.

“Again, please,” he motioned.

Mouse complied with a quick bounce to and fro through the scanners again. No alarms sounded. The guard waved her through. She picked up her jacket, her purse, her bag, and slid back into her boots. She picked up her hockey stick last, hugging it tight.

“Maybe it was the snaps and zippers?” she said, offering her jacket to the guard. He waved her away, annoyed that she was taking up so much of his time. “Where do I wait?” she asked. 

“For what?”

“For Max,” she motioned to the shade-drawn room.

“He’s going to be a while. Wait over there,” the guard frowned.

Mouse picked up Max’s bag too and went to wait where the guard had pointed, up against a wall to the side. She spent the time watching people go by, smiling back at the ones who stared too long at her.

Ten minutes later, the office door opened. Max was straightening his tie. He buckled his belt. He smoothed his hair. He smiled at the red-faced guards who were standing around the private room.

“If that is all?” Volchenkov smiled at them. They were whispering among themselves. Clearly they were more embarrassed by the strip search than Max had been.

“You’re free to go,” the lead guard decided.

“Half a nice day,” Max cheerfully offered, leaving the door open as he departed.

“Do you really have a metal thigh bone and pelvis?” Mouse asked excitedly, bouncing up to Max and giving him his bag.

“Not here, Myshka. Not now. I will tell you the sordid details another time,” he tisked, patting her shoulder. “Where is your jacket?”

“Why do you want my jacket?” she asked as she gave it to him. He held the jacket tight to his chest, and patted her on the head.

“Don't ask questions, my sweetness. Where is Dr. Reid?” Max worried.

“I haven’t seen him yet. He’s on the other side, probably.”

Max growled, “I just had to get birthday-suit naked for six strangers. He better be here quick-like.”


	4. Chapter 4

“Would you…please… pajzhohlista….would you watch the road?” Max went white.

Reid pulled the vehicle in check again, dodging the cars in the other lanes and the piles of slush that were beginning to form. Snow fell around them in thick, heavy flakes. It would all be melted and gone by tomorrow. It was a late snowstorm.

“I would have been there sooner, but the weather, the traffic. How was the flight?” Reid asked, smiling nervously.

Max screamed and smacked Reid on the arm.

“You do not have to look at the child to talk to her! Do not take your eyes off the road! Pull over. Pull over. Right this second. Pull over,” Volchenkov fussed.

Spencer gave Max a curt glance over one shoulder, but he guided the SUV to the side of the highway. Max was out of his seatbelt and out of the backseat before they rolled to a complete stop.

“Is he always like this?” Reid asked Mouse, who was unbuckling her seatbelt too. Spencer rolled down the driver side window when Max motioned for him to do so.

“Don’t open that fucking door, girl,” Max growled. Reid gasped and narrowed his eyes at Volchenkov. “You are three feet from a highway where hundreds of vehicles are traveling at 80 miles an hour, and those are the slow people. If you wish to get into the backseat, crawl over and come out this door.”

Reid put the SUV in park and undid his seatbelt, studying Max. He unlocked the door and stepped out. Mouse slipped easily across the seats and came out too. Max helped her down. She kissed him on the nose and whispered something in Russian to him. She climbed into the backseat and across, then pulled Reid into the backseat with her. They buckled into their seatbelts.

Max jumped into the driver seat and adjusted it, forward and backwards, until he was happy with it. He adjusted the rearview mirror. He adjusted the side-view mirrors. He adjusted the back of the seat. Reid imagined with amusement how annoyed Hotch was going to be when he got in his car in the morning and would have to readjust everything.

Volchenkov pulled on his belt and clicked it into place. He sighed with contentment. He took a deep breath, and turned around to face Reid.

“I’m sorry. I apologize for the harsh language. I find it very difficult to ride instead of drive.”

“You have control issues. I get it,” Reid said softly. “I live with Mr. Control Issues. You two should compare notes.”

“I do not mean to be pejorative about your driving abilities or to insinuate you are less capable of….”

“I get it,” Reid repeated quietly.

“Lahdna? But I do not want you to spend the week annoyed with me because of this, or because I came with the child.”

“Lahdna. Okay. You are Mouse’s bodyguard. Where she goes, you go. I get that too,” Reid whispered. “Frankly, I would have been stunned if she had arrived alone.”

“It is not that the mistress does not trust you to watch over Myshka.”

“But I have very little experience with children….” 

“I’m NOT a child!” Mouse exclaimed.

“….and you are here as much for my protection as for Mouse’s protection. If anything should happen to Katherine, Korsakova will hunt me down and shoot me like a rabid dog. Thank you for pointing out my every flaw. I do so appreciate it.”

“Is that the look you give the murderers?” Max wondered, a hint of swagger and amusement returning to his face. Reid didn’t reply. He only raised one brow. “It’s very effective. It’s quite scary,” Max added.

“If you turn on the GPS, you’ll be able to find your way to the house,” Reid murmured evenly.

“GPS?” Max laughed, eyes darting to the group of cars going past. “I do not need tiny, bossy machines to direct us to your house, Dr. Reid.”

“Mama is still having you followed,” Mouse murmured. Max frowned at her in the rearview mirror, turning around to watch the cars. Mouse turned to watch as well. “There’s a bubble coming. Five, four, three, two…”

The vehicle shot off the shoulder and back into traffic. Mouse slipped her fingers into Reid’s hand, holding tight.

“Why did you fight with your mother?” Reid asked, rubbing Mouse’s cold extremities. He took out his gloves and put them on her hands.

“She wanted me to spend Spring Break with my baba in Vladivostok. I said no,” Mouse replied, suddenly very interested in the snow outside.

“You did not say no,” Max corrected, chiding her.

“I said no, but not in so many words,” Mouse admitted.

“What did you say?” Reid asked. 

“I said no.”

“What did you say?” Reid asked again.

“I burst into tears, threw my hockey stick at her, and stormed out of the room,” Mouse admitted shamefully.

“Your mother needed stitches,” Max scolded. “You made her cry.”

“Ekatarina,” Reid frowned. “She is your mother.”

“I hate Vladivostok!” Mouse wailed.

“She is your mother, and you will respect her. You will not throw hockey sticks at anyone, but especially at your mother. That is all I should need to say on the matter. Do you understand me?” Reid said.

Mouse welled up with tears and began to babble. “Baba wants Mama to send me to live with her FOREVER!. She said I BELONG in Russia, that I need to learn what a spoiled brat I am. She wants me to stay there FOREVER.”

“Katherine….” Reid tried to reason with her. Mouse’s voice rose even higher.

“Baba keeps demanding for Mama to send me to Russia to live. She said I belong in one place, not chasing around the world. Now that I’m getting older, she wants me to have a proper up-bringing, so I turn into a nice, empty-headed. pretty girl that a nice man will want to marry someday. She said I’m turning into a hoodlum, keeping company with gangsters and criminals and killers. The scum of the earth. That’s what she thinks of Max and Dyadya Val. You have to stop Mama from sending me to Russia!”

“Myshka,” Max soothed. "Your mama isn't going to send you anywhere..."

“Baba will make me eat nothing but fish!” Mouse howled.

“How can I help?” Reid breathed.

“Tell Mama you’ll sue for custody if she tries to take me to Vladivostok.”

Reid went white with concern. He fumbled for words. “Katherine, if it were my decision, you wouldn’t go back to Seattle, to say nothing of Vladivostok.”

Reid petted her hands, feeling Max’s eyes full on him. Spencer made a point of not looking back at Max, concentrating instead on Mouse.

“I think you well know that it is not my decision where you live. I enjoy your company only with your mother’s permission. Should she wish to withdraw that permission, I would never be able to see you again,” Spencer added.

“So you’re afraid of her, just like Max is?” Mouse challenged.

Volchenkov flared with wounded pride. “If you had any sense, you would be afraid of her too,” Max replied.

“I will talk with your mother,” Reid promised. “What is the matter with Seattle?”

“Aside from the surprising dearth of handsome, sexy vampires?” Mouse attempted to be funny although there were fresh tears in her eyes.

“Hotch says the arboretum is quite nice,” Reid said, clearing his throat quietly and reaching into his pocket. He gave Mouse a tissue. She took off Reid’s gloves and dried her face. She scooted as far across the cold leather as she could without unhooking her seatbelt, and snuggled tight against Reid’s shoulder.

“I hate Seattle. It’s rainy, cold, and wet, and it’s far away from you,” Mouse answered. Reid reached an arm around her and leaned his head against hers.

“It’s not forever,” Reid whispered.

“Nothing is forever except death,” Mouse mumbled into Reid’s chest.

“No. Death isn’t forever either,” Max interjected. Reid gave him a grateful glance and smile for trying to cheer Mouse with his horrible humor.

“Not if they have the right parts on hand, I suppose,” Mouse agreed. “Max set off the alarms at the airport. They took him away for a strip search. He's got metal parts.”

“Which is why I prefer to drive instead of fly. Although, the strip search was not without its charms,” Max interjected more.

“Oh, kinky,” Mouse smiled, lifting her head.

“No better way to study a security system than to be subject to it?” Reid questioned, muffling Mouse’s mouth with one long-fingered hand.

“How right you are, Dr. Reid,” Max nodded. “Ah. I believe this is the correct road? Yes?”

“Yes. Down that way. It’s at the end of a long driveway.”

“Drive on the parkway. Park on the driveway,” Max murmured to himself. “There is your escort, the spitfire. See the car turning down the road behind us?”

“It might not be Spaulding,” Reid commented without a backwards glance.

“You have more than one?” 

“What kind of car is it?”

Mouse stretched up, eyes peering over Reid’s shoulder.

“Yeah, no one would notice a tail driving that, would that?”

“Hummer 2,” Max answered. “Red. Shiny. Extravagant.”

“That is Unknown One. General Scott drives a gray Mercedes. Lieutenant Spaulding drives a dark blue Nissan. Ensign James drives a blue Jeep. Captain Magnusson drives a white Volvo.”

“Of course. The Swedes,” Max mused.

“There are two others. Both Marines. Unknown One is six-two, mid twenties, red hair, brown eyes. Built like a brick….um…..he’s well built.”

“Name?”

“Unknown. I haven’t been able to snap a decent picture and run it through face-recognition software yet. He drives the Hummer.”

“And the last one?” 

“Unknown Two.” 

“What does he drive?”

“I've only ever seen him in government vehicles, never a private one. I caught a full glimpse of him in Baton Rouge a couple weeks ago-- he's blond and cold. It wasn't enough time to snap a picture of him.”

“But you have a photographic memory,” Max complained.

“I have an eidetic memory. Similar, but different.”

Mouse was blinking quietly at Reid, then at Max, then back at Reid.

“Do I want to ask?” she whispered.

“No, you don’t,” Reid told her. “Unknown One. He will bypass the driveway and go to the side road three-quarters of a mile away. That will allow him to swing around the property, and come up on the house from the back drive, which bisects through the wooded area and crosses over the small brook.”

“You could always wait for him to pull up and confront him,” Max suggested.

“If you scare them, they get jumpy, pull weapons on you.”

“Why would you tell me all about your tails?” Max wondered.

“So you don’t accidently shoot any of them, thinking they are prowlers. They overlap hours. What time is it?”

“Nearly nine.”

“By ten, there will be another car. By eleven, only one or two will remain.”

“I will go and introduce myself,” Max decided.

“Perhaps not a bad idea. Then they won’t shoot you, thinking you’re a prowler.”


	5. Chapter 5

There was a young blond boy sitting at the small table in the kitchen the next morning when Mouse tiptoed downstairs. She paused on the kitchen threshold, and he stopped shoveling cereal into his mouth as he stared up at her.

“Hi,” she said, picking up the cereal box. “Yum. Cheerios.”

“Hi. I’m Jack,” he said.

“You must have been asleep when we got back last night. Hi. I’m Mouse. Katherine, really. Call me ‘Mouse’.”

“Hi, Mouse. Are you real?”

“Yes,” she replied. She grabbed a bowl from the cabinet, a spoon from the drawer, and sat beside him. He carefully touched her on the hand with one fingertip, and then he pulled his finger back, laughing softly.

“You are real,” he agreed. He jumped up from his seat and got the milk out of the fridge. He pushed it across the table to her and got back into his seat.

“Supposing I wasn’t real? Then what?” Mouse began to take careful bites, watching Jack for his reaction.

“Dad says if I see anyone else in the house who isn’t real, that I should tell him right away. We’ll get Dr. Basenthorpe to come back.”

“Have you seen people in the house who are not real?”

“Two. Becky and Violet.”

“Um, okay,” Mouse said slowly.

“They’re ghosts,” Jack said. He was serious. Mouse could tell right away she should not make light of this.

“The house is haunted?”

“Yep. You’re sleeping in Becky’s room.” 

“The ghost has her own bedroom?”

“She’s never there. She likes the attic better. We had to put all the old photographs and books back up there for her, so she wouldn’t feel lonely.”

“In case you’re curious, the big guy sleeping in the other guest room? He’s real like me. You don’t need to call the ghost doctor.”

“Thanks. I was wondering.” 

“Tell me about Becky.” 

“She’s a ghost.”

Mouse nodded. “Is she a big ghost or a small ghost?” 

“She’s about my age. She had a brother Jack.” 

“What happened to her brother?”

“Violet killed him. Violet killed Becky too.”

Mouse put down her spoon and stared hard at Jack. There was a flushing noise from the closed door off to their far left. The door opened to reveal a bathroom. A young man stepped out, and came to a screeching halt when he saw Mouse.

“That’s Ensign Arthur,” Jack supplied helpfully. “Don’t worry. He’s real.”

“Hey, Jack,” the ensign said, ruffling the boy’s hair on the way to the fridge, where he snagged up a single serving container of skim milk. “Hello, mysterious breakfast guest.”

“Hey,” Mouse replied, trying too hard to be casual.

“I’m real, but I’m a figment of your imagination, if you know what I mean. Pretend you never saw me.”

“Okay,” Mouse accepted that. He must be one of the tails Max and Reid had been discussing in the car last night.

“Are you Dr. Reid’s daughter with the spy lady in Seattle?”

“My mother is not a spy. She’s a linguist,” Mouse replied angrily.

“Is that what she told you?” Arthur murmured on his way around the table.

“What business is it of yours what my mother does?” Mouse asked.

“Reid made you cookies,” Jack pointed at the counter. “I had one. They’re pretty good. Butterscotch oatmeal.”

“Awesome,” the young man said, making a beeline for the counter. He scooped up the plastic container and peered inside. “Tell Dr. Reid thanks for me, okay, kiddo?”

“Sure,” Jack smiled. The ensign opened the back door and vanished in the direction of the dilapidated barn. A skinny black cat with one white leg rushed in through the open door before Mouse could close it.

“Goody! Where have you been?” Mouse exclaimed. He had been on her bed for part of the night but then had vanished. The cat leapt up into her lap when she sat back down. He nuzzled her face, then stuck his nose in her cereal bowl. “You shouldn’t be outside. You’ll get eaten by a coyote.”

“No coyotes here,” Jack said, finishing his cereal.

“Just jackals,” Mouse answered, watching the barn. The coffee machine stirred to life with a whirring, beeping noise.

“Six o’clock. Dad will be up first. I better go get dressed for school. Why don’t you have school?” Jack asked.

“Spring Break this week.”

“Oh! I get Spring Break next week. Dad is taking me to see Grandma and Granddad.”

“In Las Vegas?” Mouse asked, dying with curiosity.

“In Richmond,” a deep voice murmured from the doorway.


	6. Chapter 6

“Good morning, Dad!” Jack leapt up and hurried around the chairs, hugging Hotch’s strong thighs.

“Good morning, buddy. Go get ready for school,” Hotch said. Jack saluted before racing away. Jack seemed to have two gears – stop and go. “Good Morning, Katherine,” Aaron smiled at Mouse, and then dropped a solemn glance at Goody. “It must be genetic,” he decided grimly.

“What is?” Mouse wondered. Dr. Goodfoot had his face buried in her cereal bowl, and he was greedily slurping up the milk.

“Your father feeds the cat at the table too,” Hotch replied, digging through the cabinets for two heavy coffee mugs.

“Jack said I’m sleeping in Becky’s room,” Mouse said. Hotch tipped a little too much sugar into the mugs as he looked anxiously at her.

“I was sorta kidding when I told him that, but he took me seriously,” Aaron almost smiled. “It’s not Becky’s room. She prefers the attic.”

“So the house isn’t haunted, and he hasn’t seen ghosts?”

“No. It is, and he has. But don’t let Becky worry you. It’s Violet you need to be wary of. Let us know if you see or feel something weird.”

“There was a strange guy in your house,” Mouse pointed towards the bathroom.

“Yeah. That’s Ensign Arthur,” Hotch nodded. “Pretend you didn’t see him.”

“He said my mother is a spy, just like that, right to my face.”

Hotch got the milk from the fridge and sat down at the table.

“Have you never had this conversation with your mother?” he asked carefully, pouring a small amount of milk in his coffee. He put down his mug, and Goodfoot got up on the table to investigate it. Hotch picked Goody up and gently put him on the floor.

“She’s a linguist,” Mouse insisted crankily even though she knew better. Katherine was not ignorant to the odd things her mother had done in conjunction with holding down jobs at various universities throughout the years. She knew that linguists didn’t have people followed. She knew that linguists didn’t hire bodyguards for their children. She knew that linguists rarely needed a cache of weaponry in their kitchen pantry. She knew that linguists didn’t teach their children self-defense and how to handle a gun when they were still in elementary school. But she clung to the fantasy that her mother held a normal job and was a normal person, because that illusion of normalcy meant a lot to her view of herself as well as her view of her mother.

“How do you like Seattle?” Hotch wondered, hoping a change of topic would help. He had easily read the upset emotions on Mouse’s face. He couldn’t stop himself from seeing Reid in her features—her small nose, her cheekbones, her jaw. Especially in her eyes.

“Have you ever been there?” 

“I used to live there.”

“Then you know it’s wet and miserable and horrible. I never want to go back.”

“Seattle is better than Vladivostok, isn’t it?” Aaron questioned.

Mouse decided a moment of quiet might be appropriate. Goody was rubbing around her feet, purring loudly. Hotch got up from the table and opened a lower cabinet. He found the bag of cat food and searched around for Goody’s bowls by the bathroom door. Mouse took a bite of cereal, and Hotch frowned.

“Honey, don’t do that. Goody’s had his tongue in there. Do you know where his tongue has been? Millions of germs. You could die. Get a clean bowl and fresh milk, and please keep your kitty off the kitchen table.”

Mouse frowned at Hotch, who didn’t seem to notice her annoyance. It was amazing how this man reminded Katherine of Mama’s second husband, Ivan Chumakov. Not Alex’s father. The other husband. Mama had called him Chuma, and he never did like the nickname but it had stuck. Chuma had been an emotionally cold and icy man too, just like Davydov, with his dark hair and blue eyes. Hotch shared their stoic aloofness.

Mouse often wondered what had happened to Chuma. He had been there for a short while, and then he had been gone. There was no explanation offered except that he had had to make a sudden trip. She didn’t feel bad about Chuma’s absence. He had never referred to her by name. He had always called her ‘the girl’ or ‘your girl’ or ‘you’.

‘Your girl is too curious’.

‘The girl was in my things again’.

She couldn't help herself. She was drawn to the room in the house where he worked, drawn to watch him from the doorway, gaze at the pretty colored vials he kept on the desk. She liked to watch him work with the thin slides under the microscope, and the tiny round dishes that were always about. She liked to lurk in the hallway and greet the nearly-endless stream of women who would come to visit Chuma. They would pat her on the head and smile at her. They would talk with Max, and he would talk with them. Mama never spoke with the other women. If she met them at all, she would treat them at a distance.

Whenever Chuma wasn't at his desk, Mouse would toddle closer, climb into his chair, and mess with whatever was in reach. One time she had dared to enter the room while Chuma was at his desk and no one else was around. He had smiled at her, motioned her closer, and gave her one of the beautiful pretty vials.

‘Here, you. It’s very tasty. You’ll like it’.

Chuma had disappeared while Mouse was in the hospital with pneumonia. She had been two or three at the time. She remembered the last time she had seen him.

‘If the girl wasn’t always in my things, she wouldn’t have drunk the vial’.

‘Poison her? Why would I want to hurt the girl? You’re being paranoid.’

Mouse remembered hearing Max and Chuma talking over her hospital bed. Max was smiling down at her reassuringly, and Chuma was looking very pale and nervous.

“That look is genetic too,” Aaron mused, grabbing his coffee mug off the table.

“What look?” Mouse asked, brushing the mental image of Chuma and his pretty colored glass vials out of her mind. Hotch picked up the toaster and held it up so she could see her reflection. Mouse looked at the toaster, looked at him, and frowned even more dramatically. Hotch put the toaster back down, feeling a bit silly. She picked up her spoon and stared into the back of it. All she could see was her hair and her forehead.

“Try to keep your voice down for a while. Your father didn’t get a lot of sleep. He was on the phone with your mother late last night. He was speaking to her in Russian so I wouldn’t eavesdrop, but I got the drift of the conversation.”

Mouse was surprised. Hope lifted her smile. She set down the spoon.

“Katherine, he loves you very much, and he does care what happens to you," Hotch continued.

“I know.”

“I’ve been through a messy divorce. I know what it’s like when two parents don’t see eye to eye with each other but they share a child. You’re old enough to understand when I tell you, you can’t play your mother against your father to get what you want.”

“I’m not,” Mouse defended.

“Your place is with your mother, because your father….he….” Hotch caught himself, and shook his head. “He loves you very much, and he wants to be a father to you, but you’re going to have to give him time to get used to the idea that he even is a father. More than that, you’re going to have to give him time to deal with how he became a father. I’m telling you this because it’s a conversation your mother isn’t going to have with you, and it’s one your father could probably never bring himself to have with you.”

“What makes you think you ought to have it with me, then?” Mouse frowned. “Who the hell are you?” she added bluntly.

“Someone ought to tell you. You have a right to know.”

“I know they were never married,” Mouse shrugged. “That’s not a big deal.”

“Not married? That’s not even the half of it,” Aaron sighed. “I don’t know how to tell you this.”

Hotch stared at Katherine and her angry face, and couldn’t find the words. He was swallowed again by the resemblance between Reid and Mouse, and couldn’t bring himself to spit the words out. Because hurting Mouse would hurt Reid, Hotch couldn’t say what he wanted to say.

“You’re right. It is not my place to tell you anything about this. I’m pretty sure as you get older, and you get to know your father better, you’re going to put two and two together on your own.”

“I’m not completely stupid. I do know where babies come from,” Mouse told him coldly.

“Yeah, mm hmm, okay,” Hotch nodded. There was clearly no talking to her when she was in this kind of mood, and Hotch was struggling not to smile or to cry, because he had dealt with Spencer in that very same mood more than he would like to admit. “If I think for one minute that your mother is using you to hurt your father….” Aaron babbled, shaking his head again.

“Why would she do a thing like that?”

“…then I’m going straight to Seattle and have a serious talk with her. It will not be a friendly talk.”

“Mama would never hurt Papa. You don’t know how she feels about him. You don’t know the first thing about my mother!”

“I love your father very much, and I am not going to stand by and watch your mother use you to manipulate and hurt him.”

“She’s not going to!” Mouse exclaimed defensively.

“He is absolutely desperate to have a good relationship with you. He doesn’t have a healthy connection with either of his parents. He’s worried he can’t be a good father to you because of them.”

“How is that my fault?”

“Katherine, none of this is your fault. I know. I know. You are as much caught in the middle as your father is,” Aaron sighed heavily. “Be gentle with him. Be patient and careful with him—that’s all I’m saying. And tell your mother what I said. I’m serious. If she uses you to hurt Spencer, the door will close. It will be up to you what side of the door you want to be on at that point.”


	7. Chapter 7

Hotch’s words were stuck in Mouse’s head, playing over and over. She couldn’t get them to turn off. She kept seeing his dark eyes fill with pain and concern, kept seeing his face go stoic and grim as he carried the two cups of coffee away from the kitchen. It was a relief when he left for work and took the bright and bubbly Jack with him. Mouse wasn’t just angry at Hotch for being so blunt and honest with her, she was more than a little scared that the feelings he was expressing to her were feelings that Reid was feeling about her but couldn’t say to her personally.

Mouse tiptoed up the stairs, followed by Goodfoot. She had been headed back to her guest room to hide, to read, maybe to go back to sleep. She paused by the open master bedroom door. Reid was hidden under the covers except for his face. He looked thinner and taller. He thrashed as if he were having troubled dreams.

Mouse remembered when she was little, that she would climb into bed with Max when she would wake up alone and scared in the night. She never climbed in bed with Mama. Not with Alex either. Always with Max. She wondered how Reid would react if she crawled into his bed with him. She watched him for a moment or two, but decided to tiptoe away and let him sleep.

She lingered by the map room, and after a moment’s indecision, she ventured inside. Every wall in the room was hung with layers of maps. There wasn’t a bare space to be seen. Mouse strode across the deep blue carpet and headed for the furthest wall, next to the window that overlooked the long driveway. She sat down on the wide window sill and stared around, wondering at the white dots among the clouds that were painted on the light blue ceiling.

She wondered about all the pins in the maps on the walls too. These maps were plotted with Reid’s many adventures, both good and bad, imaginary and real. Mouse wondered what each of the pins represented. She walked around, touching each destination. It made her sad that so many of the places he had been that she had never even heard of, towns around the United States and the world. She wondered what had happened at each of these locations. There were international locations plotted as well. She wondered if they had ever been in the same location at the same time. How long had they both been in DC and not known about each other?

Goody followed her as she walked around the room. He shuffled under one of the lower maps and lifted the layers, drawing his tail through. Spying the brown paper beneath the layers of maps, Mouse lifted the maps in order to have a better look.

There were hundreds of different of creatures drawn on the brown paper. From waist height and above, the ‘monsters’ were obviously drawn by Reid. From waist height and below, a child’s hand had started to fill in the empty spaces, in crayon, in pencil, in ink, in finger paints. Each drawing had a name beside it.

Mouse fingered Jack’s handiwork and felt a rush of jealousy. How many hours had the boy spent in Reid’s company, drawing on these walls while his father and Reid worked at the desks in the middle of the room? She lowered the maps back into place and left the walls, going towards the desks.

The work spaces were filled with stacks of brown folders, photos, half-finished reports, disarrayed pieces of paper that must have been case notes. The disorder beckoned to her, drew her curiosity.

Mouse stopped, and returned to the window, her eyes lighting up. A different car was pulling into the driveway. It parked by the barn, nestled in the space where bushes and trees covered the driveway from both sides in an arch above the path. Had the obnoxious young ensign left? A woman with blond hair was getting out of the dark blue sedan. The woman collected a gun from her glove box and slid it into the holster under her waist-length jacket. She locked her car and headed towards the barn. Mouse was flabbergasted with how cool that was –a woman worked on her father’s security detail? Why else would she have been headed towards the  
barn? Maybe Mouse could be part of his security detail too someday. She could be useful to him. He might want to keep her around then!

Goodfoot leapt up into the window and stared out as well, curious what had caught Mouse’s attention. His mistress was already gone though. She hurried back to her room to get dressed.

Mouse was at the door to the barn in two minutes flat, wearing a heavy sweatshirt and jeans, her feet stuffed into boots. The snow from last night had melted except for small drifts against big objects. There was whiteness outlining the exterior of the barn, the house, the bases of the trees. It took a good tug or two to pull the heavy barn door ajar just far enough to slither inside. It was rusted from lack of use, meaning there must be another entrance if everyone was coming and going from this base of operations.

Inside, there was what one might expect from a farm barn that had fallen into ill use. The darkness was bisected with shafts and beams of yellowed light from open windows in the sagging walls, and holes far up in the roof. Dust motes floated like wayward angels. Layers of dirt and bent, twisted straws of yellow hay were strewn on the floor. There were wooden stalls for various livestock—all empty. There was a loft far above where leftover piles of hay were lying around. It smelled heavy and dank, not foul exactly, not dirty either. It was strong and earthy. No wonder Goody liked to come out here. There must have been hundreds of mice living up there in the hayloft in relative comfort. A small brown bird flitted across the rafters towards her nest in the far corner. There were abandoned spider webs in high spaces and corners and cubby holes. There was a rope and a pulley hanging from the ceiling. A huge hook lay helpless on the floor at the end of the rope. A big tire was leaning casually against the far wall.

In the back corner of the barn, on the wall next to the driveway, what had once been the farmer’s work room had been vastly changed from the rest of the interior of the big space. It had been converted into a well-lighted room. Gray metal cabinets lined the walls which completed the small G-shaped nook. An array of small television cameras could be seen. Various vantage points around the plot of land were visible, including the driveway, a back road, the front of the garage next to the barn, and the front door of the house. A police scanner babbled and crackled in the background. Mouse heard voices and headed that direction. It was an older man and a younger woman.

“Anything else going on?”

“Agent Hotchner left at the usual time. Took Little Hotch with him.”

“Dr. Reid?”

“Asleep.” 

“The guests?”

“One is asleep. The girl was having breakfast with Little Hotch before he left.”

Mouse wondered how they could know this from outside the house. That young ensign had the nerve to talk about her mother with derision, when they were spying on Dr. Reid and his every movement? Mouse snorted to herself and marched angrily to the doorway of the small room, ready to confront someone and be very very nasty to them.

She didn’t get the chance. A thin, lithe, fast body flew out and tackled Mouse to the floor of the barn, cocking a gun and pointing it into her face. However, upon seeing she had tackled a child, the woman retreated up and off of Mouse almost as quickly, putting her gun away.

“Guds moder, girl,” the man said from the doorway of the well-lit room. “You should not be creeping around like that. Like as not to get a bullet in you.”

Mouse stared up at the woman who had tackled her, and felt crushed that it was the same woman she had been admiring in the driveway. Who was the Swedish man in the doorway, watching the blond woman pull Mouse to her feet and dust her off?

“I’m sorry, kid. Are you all right? I’m so sorry,” Spaulding fussed, dusting Mouse off with a series of fast swishes with her hand.

“You would be in some deep shit, shooting Dr. Reid’s progeny,” the Swedish man chuckled at Spaulding, then went back to watching the monitors.

“Who are you?” Mouse demanded, stepping back from the blond woman and shaking a strand of straw out from under the back of her sweatshirt. She held the back of her head where she had banged it on the hard floor.

“Lieutenant Amy Spaulding. Hi. You should go back to the house, kiddo.”

“Why are you lurking inside the barn?” Mouse demanded even more tersely.

“Because if we lurk outside the barn, the neighbors notice,” the Swedish man mused. “Is she the spy’s daughter?”

“Min mamma ar inte…” Mouse started to shout at him when he reappeared in the doorway.

“You speak Swedish?” he glowed happily.

“Come on, kiddo. Don’t argue with Matts. Captain Magnusson takes disagreement as a sign of affection. You shouldn’t be out here. I’ll walk you back to the house,” Spaulding said.

“But she speaks Swedish. Let her stay. I want to chat about her moder,” Matts beamed. “When will we get another chance to interrogate someone so close to the source? If we ply her with milk and cookies, she will tell us everything.”

“Go to Hell!” Mouse blurted. “Who do you think you are?!”

“We watch after your father,” Spaulding sighed. Mouse was so irritated with the explanation. She already knew who they were, and she didn’t need anyone talking to her like she was a child. She could protect her father. She could move back from Seattle. She and Max could.

“Why does he need you anyway?” Mouse shouted.

“So your moder does not snatch him from his bed in the middle of the night, and try to make more of you,” Matts called out maliciously.

Mouse felt tears well up as Spaulding marched her back to the house. Reid was waiting at the back porch stoop. Max was peering around him, concerned as well. They were almost comical, standing there in their pajamas and bare feet. Mouse brushed past both Reid and Max, and stomped straight upstairs to the guest room. She locked the door and hid herself under the covers of the strange bed.


	8. Chapter 8

“I have been remiss in asking you if you’d like to go see Alex in Annapolis while you’re here. I know you must miss him terribly.”

Mouse was at Hotch’s desk, watching Reid organize the various photos, notes, and folders together on his own desk. To say she was feeling sullen and mopey was an understatement. A dark cloud had been storming misery over her ever since the events in the barn this morning.

“If you can arrange dinner with him, we can drive over to the Academy and see him. Did you know that the Annapolis State House is the oldest, continuously-used legislative building in America? The current structure was built in 1772. The original structure from 1695 was destroyed by a fire, but a new building was erected on the same location. Benjamin Franklin designed the lightning rod that sits on the top of the dome. There are several restaurants and shops on Main Street leading down to the water. Some on the other side of the water too. Hotch and I ate at this one place on the water—it’s further out. Not in the oldest part of the city. It’s cold for this time of the year though. Wouldn’t be able to sit outside at Mike’s. It’s got this wooden covered pier where you can sit in the summer and watch boats on the water. Great seafood,” Reid teased gently. “What’s your opinion on crabs and shrimp as opposed to fish? Does your dislike of fish extend to all seafood, or only fin fish? There’s a lot of good seafood out here. That’s one thing Las Vegas could use more of – good fish.”

“I hate fish,” Mouse sulked. 

Reid raised his eyes off the photos he was organizing, and nodded in reply.

“I gathered that already. No fish. What’s your view on barbeque? There’s a great…”

“I’m not hungry,” Mouse pouted.

“Eventually you may be though. It happens to all of us.”

“I will never be hungry again.”

“Do you intend to live on coffee, soda, and fairy dust?” 

“Fairies don’t exist.”

“Neither does Bigfoot, but remarkably, people have managed to capture pictures of both,” Reid mused, mostly to himself. Mouse scowled at him in silent accusation, annoyed that he was making fun of her. “I hope you aren’t upset about the people in the barn,” he added.

Why would she be upset? Mouse growled to herself. She had only been tackled to the dirty floor and had a gun stuffed in her face. That nasty Swedish man had only insinuated that her mother roams the world at night, snatching innocent people out of their beds to make children with them. Why would that be at all upsetting?

“We don’t talk about the people in the barn. I mean, we all know they’re there, but we’re not supposed to know they’re there. It’s supposed to be a secret security detail. It would be impossible not to notice them though. But we pretend not to notice them, because that makes it a little less strange,” Reid offered.

“Epic fail!” Mouse hollered, raising her hands demonstratively. Reid gave a big smile at her surliness. She curled up in an angry ball again, feeling silly for the emotional outburst.

“It must seem odd, I suppose," Reid agreed.

There was a burst of gunfire from the direction of the backyard. Mouse uncoiled, got half-way up, looking startled. Reid looked up from his photos and waved a calming hand.

“It’s Spaulding and Volchenkov. Target practice. Don’t worry.”

“How do you know?”

“His Sig Sauer has a distinctive sound. Her Glock does as well. There’s a third gun. Did he bring a Ruger for her? How did he get that through security?”

“The Ruger is mine. He carries it for me. You can tell what guns they are firing?”

“Your mother bought you a gun?”

“There seems very little point in training me to fire one if you aren’t going to let me have one, don’t you think?”

"But you're too young for gun permit." 

"Permit?" Mouse questioned. Reid chuckled.

"You might be surprised to know that all guns make distinct sounds, have their own voices, if you will. We have to re-qualify on the gun range every year to be able to carry a weapon in the field. I spend enough time there that I could probably tell you which other agents are on the range with me at any given time.”

“Do those people work with you? Is that why they’re there in your barn?” Mouse asked, sitting back down.

“No. They’re not FBI.” 

“CIA?”

“General Scott is. He hand-picked the others from various agencies. Spaulding is former Air Force. She’s a pilot, served in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

“Really?” Mouse couldn’t help but be surprised. “She flies planes?”

“Helicopters. Planes. Hand-gliders. She’d fly a pterodactyl if you’d let her. I think Scott picked her for his team not only because of her useful skills, but because he served with her father, who was also a pilot. She was honorably discharged from the Air Force before General Scott hired her for his work detail. She is still referred to as Lieutenant, though, which means she has retained her rank. 

Spaulding won’t talk about why she decided to leave the Air Force. As a decorated veteran, she could have had her choice of postings. From what I was able to find out, she received a less-than-favorable evaluation two times in a row from her commanding officer on her last post. They apparently didn’t see eye to eye on matters, and that difference of opinion made her decide to leave the Air Force. I wonder if she and her last commanding officer might have had a relationship. Or if he wanted to initiate a relationship, and she was not receptive to the notion. Or conversely, if she wished to initiate a relationship, and he was not receptive to her advances.

“Considering her inadvertently-dangerous relationship with the Russian Intelligence Officer Ilya Nekrosov, and her begrudging flirtations with Max, I have to wonder if Spaulding’s worshipful idealization of her dead father, who was killed when she was in her teens, hasn’t had a detrimental effect on her ability to obtain and maintain appropriate adult relationships. She is looking for an emotional replacement for her father, and simultaneously falling for men who are nothing like her father was, and so she’s caught in a cycle of never finding an emotional bond with the men she dates, and never being able to find an emotional replacement for her father.”

“Oh,” Mouse blinked, wondering how her father knew all this if Spaulding wouldn’t talk about why she left the Air Force.

“Ensign Arthur is former Navy. He was disciplined, and ordered to request a transfer. Why General Scott picked him up, I have not yet ascertained. But it was not without a good reason, of that I am sure. Arthur has got a quick mind, and a fast hand, and ….you know, I bet Hotch was a lot like James at that age,” he smiled to himself.

“Why did he get in trouble?” Mouse asked.

Reid had finished with the photos and was working on the hand-written scraps of paper now.

“Conduct unbecoming with a fellow midshipman,” Reid said.

“He assaulted a female cadet?” Mouse gasped.

“No. He had consensual relations with a male midshipman.”

“He’s gay?” Mouse blinked.

“Yes. The American military frowns on homosexuality, which seems amazingly short-sighted in view of the accomplishments of Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, the Emperor Trajan, and Richard the Lion-Hearted, all of whom were either bisexual or gay.”

“It’s all good.”

Reid gave another awkward half smile. They were both quiet for a second or two. Mouse threw caution to the wind and blurted the question on her mind.

“If you’re gay and you’re in a relationship with Agent Hotchner, why did ever get in bed with Mama?”

Reid turned a peculiar shade of red, and stared at her. The direct manner of her question had taken him quite by surprise.

“I’m not being nosy – I just want to know,” she added nervously.

“I suppose it’s a fair question, and it’s only normal for you to be curious,” he managed to make a sentence.

“Max said you’ve slept with Agent Prentiss though. She’s a girl.”

“Why in the world would Max know or care, and why would he be discussing my sexual habits with you?”

“He’s scoping out the competition. He has a thing for Prentiss. For Spaulding too, it would seem. He likes strong women, and French-Canadian whores. Mama says God help him if he ever finds himself a strong-willed French-Canadian whore.”

“How do you know this?”

“He and Mama talk in the car when I’ve got my iPod on. I’m not always listening to music. Sometimes I’m listening to them.”

“Not surprised,” Spencer whispered. An amused twinkle returned to his eyes for a second or two.

“So are you bisexual? Not meaning to pry.”

“I suppose that ‘bisexual’ would be a fair assessment of my sexual preference. I tend to fall in love with people regardless of their gender.”

“That’s fine. It’s all good. Whatever makes you happy. I’m not judging. That doesn’t explain why you and Mama…you know…” Mouse paused and made a hand gesture, a small circle with one hand and an extended finger with the other, brushing the two together. Reid turned even more red.

“Maybe your baba in Vladivostok isn’t entirely unjustified in her opinion of your unorthodox upbringing,” he murmured as he raised a brow and cleared his throat.

“Mama’s surveillance of you started when you were fifteen, and splitting time between living in Las Vegas and attending college on the West Coast.”

“Yes.”

“She started watching you long before…well….she wouldn’t have been interested in you in that way back then.”

“Understandably.”

“How was she able to follow you if you have been guarded by General Scott and his…..”

“…..band of merry men…..” 

“….whatever you want to call them.”

“They haven’t always been guarding me, and they are not always very successful in keeping me from harm.”

“When did they start following you?”

“After the conference at Oxford in 1999. I think it was Gideon’s idea, although he never mentioned them, and would most likely have denied their existence had I ventured to question him about them, which I would not have.”

“Who is Gideon?” Mouse wondered. Reid shook his head, not wanting to explain.

“A friend. A mentor. He’s gone now.”

“So you would have been twenty when I was born?” 

“No doubting your math skills,” Reid whispered. 

“Mama was working in London before I was born.” 

“I know.”

“Is that where you met her? In London.” 

“Yes.”

Mouse watched Reid fussing with the small notes, watched his long-fingered hands trembling, watched as his expression grew distant and troubled.

“Mr. Hotch and Captain Magnusson said….” Mouse ventured cautiously.

“Said what?” Reid asked without raising his eyes.

“Is that what Mama did? She snatched you from your bed in the middle of the night? That’s how she made me with you?”

Spencer put down the notes as they began to fall from his trembling hands.

“Katherine, whatever the circumstances of your….. creation….whatever happened, none of that is your fault,” Reid clipped off the words carefully. “It’s very complicated. Although I am your father, I’ve never actually had sex with your mother. Well…no…in Wyoming, we were awfully close, practically happened there, but that was disingenuous on my part. I was placating her until I could plan how to get away from her, which is no reflection on your mother, mind you."

Mouse didn’t know what to say. Was he confirming what Magnusson had said?

“London 1999. Your mother saved my life. Her job was to abduct and recruit me. If recruitment wasn’t possible, which it wasn’t, she was ordered to obtain samples to reproduce me, and then to kill the original. She was doing her job. She found me creeping around London in the dead of night, and she approached me.”

“She kidnapped you?”

“Kidnapped is a strong word. I was curious about her. I went along willingly.”

“So in a foreign city, in the dead of night, you accepted a car ride from a strange woman with a Russian accent? Were you stupid or high?” Mouse scolded, sounding so like her mother.

“I was too trusting.” 

“What happened to you?”

“Her driver injected me with something when my back was turned. I don’t remember very much, except that your mother never left my side. She held my hand. She talked to me. I don’t know where I was. There were bright lights. It smelled like a dentist office. It was white and silver and green. There were colored glass vials on the counter. I watched the vials. I watched your mother, concentrated on her face.”

“How did you escape? Clearly you escaped. She didn’t kill you.”

“I did not escape. Once they were finished with me, your mother took me away from them. Maybe she fed them a lie about taking me away to dispose of me. I don’t know. She took me back to Gideon. She saved my life.”

“Why would she disobey orders and not kill you?” 

“I don’t know, but she is not the monster everyone wants to think she is. Hotch, he believes the worst of her, but you must promise me that you won’t do that. She saved my life, and I am forever grateful to her for that. Don’t get me wrong. I’m mad at her for what happened, but the rational part of my brain tells me that she was doing her job, that she had little or no choice, and that if she hadn’t done what she was supposed to do to me, then she would have probably been killed for disobeying orders. I don’t know how she escaped punishment for letting me go without killing me, unless she managed to convince them I was dead, or that I had escaped, or that it wasn’t necessary to kill me. I don’t know. I don’t doubt she has always felt horribly guilty about what she had to do though.”

“If she felt so guilty, why am I here?” Mouse whispered, feeling cold and alien in her own skin. Something prickled in her mind, something about her mother, something unspoken but always present, a sense about her mother that she would never allow herself to be caught at a disadvantage if she could help it. Perhaps because Dr. Reid had been defenseless and at her mercy, that situation had stirred up Mouse’s mother own fears, and so she had been protective of him because no one had been protective of her, and she couldn’t leave him in the same position, because she understood how it felt to be left vulnerable and unable to defend yourself.

And that was why, Mouse understood, Yulia had insisted that her daughter take self defense courses and learn how to handle a gun. That was why Max went everywhere with Mouse. And if not Max, then Uncle Val.

“But don’t you see?” Reid found a tiny smile. “You are what convinces me most that she felt guilty about what happened.”

“I don’t understand.”

“She made you from herself.” 

“Clearly,” Mouse puzzled.

“She not only saved my life, but she saved yours by having you.”

“I don’t understand,” Mouse repeated.

“By volunteering to have you herself, by being the surrogate for the experiment, she could control the samples. She could control the experiment. She could control the outcome of the experiment. It was a brilliant gambit on her part.”

“I’d like to think I am more than an experiment.” 

“But you are so much more than that! Isn’t that obvious? She loves you. You belong to her, and they can never take you away from her. Never. What’s more, your mother came here to have you. You were born in Maine. No matter where she has dragged you around the globe, she ensured your safety by making you an American citizen.”

“How was that for my safety?”

“As an American citizen, this government would intervene on your behalf and for your protection no matter where you are around the globe. So you don’t have to worry about being exiled to Vladivostok. What’s more, should anyone attempt to make you disappear against your mother’s consent, I would be able to find you. I track and locate people for a living. Do you think for one second I’d have trouble finding you anywhere anyone might take you?”

“I guess not,” Mouse brightened a fraction or two. "But why didn't you ever search for me before?" 

"Before that lunch in November......"

"You must have suspected....."

"I knew of course that your mother had two children. That Alex was from her first husband. She told me Davydov was your father, and I had no reason not to believe her."

"Davydov," Mouse frowned, pain flittering across her face like the shadow of a dark bird. "You never once suspected I was yours?"

"I didn't want to think about it. Couldn't let myself think about it."

"Kiri-kin-tha's first law of metaphysics?" Mouse questioned. Reid started, tilted his head, and tried to quell a truly pleased smile.

“Katherine, you are your mother’s redemption. Don’t you see? You are the reason I can forgive her for what happened. What she’s done for me, what she’s done for you, what she’s done for me through you?”

Mouse was beginning to realize what Hotch might have been hinting at when he had said she should be gentle and careful with her father. Reid seemed to be begging her to confirm his justification of what her mother had done and why, and knowing this made Mouse more than a little sorry for him. She had never seen a grown man who was so fragile and strong at the same time. She was used to Max, who had no weaknesses (except the aforementioned French- Canadian females). She was used to Dyadya Val, who didn’t even like French-Canadians. Or her brother Alex, whose only real weakness, as far as she could tell, was Lemonheads candies.

A different thought altogether suddenly erupted through Mouse’s head and derailed her sympathetic thoughts. She bounced up in her chair and waved her hands around for a second.

“Chuma!” she exclaimed excitedly. 

“Germs?” Reid puzzled.

“Ivan Chumakov. Was there a man with dark hair and blue eyes, small glasses?”

Reid sat back in his chair as he spoke, “I remember your mother and her voice, and how she made me feel safe.”

“That’s why she…..now it makes sense that Mama married Chuma. It fits! She didn't love him! If he was the one who was in charge of the project, the one who had final say over what happened to me or the other children, then Mama married him in order to keep me close, and to gain control over Chuma as well. Then Chuma vanished, and was no more,” Mouse babbled enthusiastically.

Reid studied Mouse, tilting his head to one side and narrowing his eyes.

“Was Chuma an émigré, or did he remain a Russian citizen?”

“Russian citizen. I have no doubt. You know those guys you see on the highways, driving in their big trucks with double-sets of back tires, huge American flags flying behind, patriotic stickers everywhere on their bumpers and back windows?”

“Yes?”

“That’s Chuma, except for Mother Russia, not America. Not that he flew a flag or dotted his car with stickers, but I remember getting popped in the head for not standing during the national anthem whenever it was playing. One time Chuma popped me in the head, and Max dropped him to the floor with this chop to the collarbone. It was glorious,” Mouse smirked.

“Another piece to the puzzle,” Reid agreed, his smile beginning to take on a happier note. At least the greenish tinge was leaving his face.

There was more gunfire from the backyard. Reid cocked his head that direction, and his eyes took on a conspiratorial glow of mischief that made Mouse feel warm inside.

“Do you think Max would tell you what happened to Chuma?” he murmured carefully.

“If he knows, he might,” Mouse nodded. “I could question him.”

"He'll know what you're up to...." Reid shook his head hesitantly.

"No. I can find out. I can," Mouse promised. "I will."

“Any idea about his patronymic?” Reid had taken out his cell phone and was dialing while he waited for Mouse to answer.

“Larentievich,” Mouse squinted, squeezing her brain for long-buried details.

“Ivan Larentievich Chumakov. Specibo, Myshka.”

“Hey, Dr. Precious! How’s that father-daughter bonding going?” Garcia said brightly from the speaker of the cell phone. Mouse raised a brow and frowned.

“Good,” Reid answered unsurely.

“I'm accessing Hotch's computer. Let me have a look at you two.”

Mouse looked at the laptop under her fingertips and quickly closed the cover.

“Bye. I have to pee,” Mouse announced, all but fleeing from the room.

“What did I say?” Garcia sighed unhappily.

“It’s not you, Garcia,” Reid promised. “Could I ask you a favor?”

“Ask away, Boo.”


	9. Chapter 9

“Here.”

Hotch handed Reid a folder from his attaché, and swung around at his desk in the study to turn on his laptop and log in.

“Oh, Garcia! I love you.”

“Why did you ask Penelope to build a file on Ivan Chumakov? Is he connected with one of our cases?”

“No,” Reid replied, handing Hotch a stack of ten folders, completed, compiled, straight and tidy, with attached reports.

“Who, may I ask, is Ilya Bryzgalov?” Hotch wanted to know.

“Goalie for the Philadelphia Flyers. Why?” Reid asked. Hotch spun his laptop around. It was decorated with an orange, white, and black P and the close-up of a guy in a goalie mask. “Ah. Mouse was using your laptop while I was using mine. Sorry.”

" ‘Why you heff to be mad?’ What is that supposed to mean?”

“Nezniya. I don’t know,” Reid shrugged.

Hotch set about reverting his screensaver back to what it had been before, the glowing FBI emblem, and continued sounding Reid out about his day.

“Sorry,” Reid repeated sheepishly. 

“Everything going okay?” Hotch asked. 

“Everything?”

“You and Mouse.”

“Me and Mouse. Hm. I dunno. She hasn’t thrown any hockey sticks at me yet.”

“Jack thinks she’s very cool.”

“Good,” Spencer smiled brightly, relieved.

“He wants to know why she calls you ‘Papa’ instead of ‘Reid’.”

“What did you say?” Reid worried.

“I told him she is your daughter, and that’s why she calls you ‘Papa’.”

“Oh,” Reid sighed. Something about that bothered him, and Hotch wasn’t sure why. What part of that was a problem?

“Did you two argue or something?” Hotch worried.

“Not exactly,” Spencer hedged. “If it’s not too much to ask, could you please avoid talking to Katherine about anything remotely related to Oxford, London, her mother, and all that stuff, hmm? Yes, please?”

" ‘All that stuff’ meaning the gory details about her conception?”

“Yeah,” Reid nodded. “The gory details. We had a talk.”

“You talked? You talked about….?” Hotch was impressed and had a hard time hiding it.

“We talked. She knows what she wanted to know. That’s all that needs to be said. Let it go.”

“Spencer, I hope you don’t feel I overstepped….”

“I know your heart is in the right place, Hotch, but I’m a little touchy about having been sampled and duplicated against my will. I’m even more touchy about how much Mouse knows about that particular situation. I never wanted to have kids because of the chance of passing on schizophrenia to my offspring. Now that Mouse is here though, I certainly never want to make her feel like I never wanted her. In the end, Fate has had a good laugh at me. The irony does not escape me. That’s what  
Rossi meant, by the way. ‘Let Fate lead you by the hand or she will drag you by the ankle’. Except Fate didn’t have a hold of my ankle.”

“All right,” Hotch nodded slowly.

“It’s not Katherine’s fault, and you need to stop holding this against Yulia.”

"I’ll try,” Aaron added.

“If I’m willing to forgive Korsakova, then you should be able to as well.”

“I will try,” Hotch agreed amiably with a tight smile.

“There’s only one thing that really troubles me about this.”

“What’s that?”

“Something that Mouse said sticks in my mind. What if she isn’t the only one out there?”

“Valid concern,” Hotch agreed. “What’s the best place to start in pursuit of an answer to that question?”

“Ivan Chumakov,” Reid smiled pertly, opening the file again.

“He’s been missing for a number of years.” 

“So I heard," Reid smiled coyly.

“He left for a business trip to Greece and never returned. Strange thing is, he never arrived in Athens.”

“Yeah, strange.”

“You do know that Mr. Chumakov was Yulia’s second husband, don’t you?”

“Yes, I was aware.” 

“Mrs. Chumakov…”

“Chumakova,” Reid corrected him.

“….was not entirely heart-broken when the police questioned her about Mr. Chumakov’s disappearance.”

“By most accounts, he was a jerk and a knee-biter. Why would Korsakova miss him?”

“Maybe you got off lucky where Korsakova is concerned.”

Reid put down the Chumakov file and cleared his throat. He wasn’t sure he was ready to be teased about this touchy situation.

“In what sense?” he asked hesitantly. Hotch reached into his attaché and pulled out another file. He handed it to Reid, who devoured it hungrily.

“Alexei Salnikov. Korsakova’s first husband. Alex’s father. He was twenty years her senior. Her mother arranged the marriage. He’s dead too, in case you’re curious. The father. Mr. Salnikov. He was drowned, and he was shot.”

“That can happen to sailors.”

“It can also happen to men who beat their wives. He was arrested four times for domestic violence in the five years that he and Yulia were married.”

“That could explain why she learned how to be extravagantly proficient with firearms.”

“It could also explain why he was found missing his head.”

“If he was missing his head, how did they determine he had drowned?”

“Water in the lungs."

"So he had his head at the point when he went in the water, yes?"

"What you should be asking is what happened to his head?”

Spencer grinned ghoulishly. “Decapitation post mortem or ante mortem?”

“He was breathing and alive when he went in the drink. His head was removed after he had drowned.”

“Preposterous! Who bothers to shoot someone, throw them in the water, wait for them to drown, and then climb in the water and decapitate them?”

“Someone very angry.”

“Hotch, it’s time-consuming. Bothersome.” 

“Dangerous.”

“That too.”

“I meant Korsakova. She is dangerous.”

“But she is not a good swimmer,” Spencer corrected, wiggling one finger in disagreement. “I doubt seriously if Yulia would have had the time or the inclination to track down Mr. Salnikov aboard his Russian submarine in the Pacific Ocean, shoot him, throw him overboard, watch him drown, jump in after him, remove his head, keep his head, and swim all the way back to Vladivostok.”

“Difficult but not impossible. What is it called when a sailor goes over on a submarine? I mean, it’s not really overboard so much as…well, what exactly?”

“Missing,” Reid smiled. “You do have to ask yourself how a man on a submarine turned up missing, drowned, dead, and decapitated from under the ocean though.”

“Korsakova did it. I’m telling you.” 

“Hotch, your delirious supposition is not impossible. But the odds are astronomically against it.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“According to the file, Mr. Salnikov would have been dispatched at roughly the same time Korsakova was pregnant with Mouse.”

“All the more reason she needed to be rid of him.”

“They were already divorced. He wouldn’t have given half a damn if she was pregnant by someone else.”

“Divorced or not, she must have hated Salnikov for the abuse she suffered.”

“No doubt. You’re mad at your father, and he’s been dead thirty years. But if you think for one second that while Yulia was five or six months pregnant, she was going to track down her ex-husband and shoot him, drown him, hack off his head, and keep his skull, then you need your head examined.”

“You’ve never been around a pregnant woman when the fluctuating hormones really get a hold of her, have you?”

“I was around JJ when she was pregnant with Henry.” 

“She was an angel, believe you me!”

“Was Haley moody when she was pregnant with Jack?”

“If by ‘moody’ you mean capable of a rage-driven murder? Yes, on any given day,” Hotch confirmed.

“So, you think Yulia dispatched Salnikov, took his head, married Chumakov, then made him disappear too when she got bored with him?”

“Yeah, why not? Look what happened to Davydov. She was involved with him too. He wound up dead and missing most of his head too, didn’t he? Maybe she’s got a whole collection of severed heads somewhere.”

Reid gave Hotch a playful if impatient glare.

“You wanna know what else I wanna know? If she married and divorced Salnikov, then married and was widowed when Chumakov vanished, then why is her name Korsakova?” Hotch whispered.

“First off, Salnikov went missing in shark-infested water, so it’s no big surprise he came up missing a few vital parts,” Spencer pointed at the file he was holding.

“Sure, blame the wildlife,” Hotch replied, his voice full of wonderful warmth.

“Secondly, Chumakov could have disappeared a hundred different places between home and Athens, making it virtually impossible to judge why you would even suspect Korsakova in the first place, other than personal dislike. You don’t even know where his body is, let alone his head.”

“What about Davydov?”

“Prentiss said the Night Watch killed him.” 

“Did they?”

“She said not to ask how she knows that, so I didn’t.”

“Then I won’t ask either,” Hotch agreed, although he knew from Prentiss that Max had admitted to killing Davydov because he had feared for Mouse's safety. “Has it occurred to you that Korsakova or Max, or maybe both Korsakova and Max, belong to the Night Watch?” Hotch asked, leaning forward and lowering his voice.

“I believe they both do, as well as Uncle Val in Anaheim. It would explain their freedom of movement, the frequent relocations, and ready- access to information and supplies. So much the better. I know Mouse will be safe with them. You really don’t trust Yulia, do you?”

“I’m amazed that you can trust her,” Hotch huffed.

“Hotch, what more could she possibly do to me?” Reid laughed in dark humor.

Hotch was smiling again because he had made Reid smile as well. Spencer folded up the Salnikov file and put it on the desktop with the Chumakov file.

“Where did Korsakova come from? Is there a dead Mr. Korsakov out there?” Hotch asked.

“It’s her maiden name.”

“But her father’s name is Chernokov.”

“Chernokov is her step-father. Her real father's name was Korsakov.”

Jack galloped into the map room and ran for Spencer, taking his arm and pulling on his sleeve anxiously.

“Shouldn’t you be asleep, honey?” Reid asked, giving him a smooch on the head and rubbing his blond hair.

“Papa! Mouse is cursing at the washer and whacking it with her hockey stick.”

“Why is she cursing at the washer?” 

“I dunno. But it sounds bad.”

“I’ll go see what’s wrong,” Reid said. “Keep my chair warm.”

Jack climbed up into Reid’s chair. Spencer headed out into the hallway and downstairs, towards the sounds of high-pitched Russian curses and metallic whacking noises. Hotch smiled at Jack and blinked back tears, biting his mouth closed. Had it even registered with Spencer what Jack had called him? Hotch supposed it hadn’t. Jack spun himself around, staring up at the ceiling, smiling.

“My favorite jersey! IT’S RUINED! My clothes...they're...all....PINK!!” Mouse was screaming.

“Calm down,” Reid soothed. "Give me that stick before you hurt someone."

Jack stopped spinning and his eyes landed on Reid’s desk.

“What are you and Papa working on?” Jack asked. He reached for the two files that Reid had laid down. Hotch leapt up and tried to get them out of his son’s hands before it was too late, but graphic photos spilled everywhere.

“GROSS!” Jack exclaimed. “Where is his head?!”


End file.
